


That Romantic Dinner With Candlelight, Wine and Raccoons

by Maldoror_Chant



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Fluff, just-for-fun fic, no raccoons were harmed in the production of this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27213106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: It took long enough for Michael to agree to this date, so Castiel goes all out on the perfect homemade meal. The table looks great, quite romantic, except for the way Castiel is now standing on it, armed with a broom and desperately phoning around for a pest control expert to come help him with an unexpected problem of the fuzzy variety.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 35
Kudos: 204
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	That Romantic Dinner With Candlelight, Wine and Raccoons

**Author's Note:**

> I had a bear of a week, annoying as all hell, so rather than yell at the dogs and then go sulk, I decided to write something funny and silly to cheer me up.

“Oh, your one year anniversary?” echoes the waitress in a tone that patently states ‘I don’t really need to know why you’re here, but I do care about my tip, so fine, lay it on me.’

The deep, quiet happiness inside Castiel isn't repelled by the clear lack of genuine interest from his audience, it has to burst out. “That’s right, we got together one year ago today.”

“We had dinner and that was it, I was gone,” his boyfriend adds, also not discouraged by the waves of Don’t Give A Damn emanating from the waitress. 

The two of them catch each other’s eye over their beers and start to snicker.

The waitress does not seem intrigued by this in the least, she collects their menus and hoofs it. 

Castiel looks away before his chuckles turn into full-on uncontrollable laughter. Oh, dear, he’s laughed and smiled so much in the past year, he wonders at times if he’s not getting dangerously close to some kind of quota reserved for early-thirties gay corporate accountants such as himself… 

He wasn’t smiling a year ago at this time, that’s for sure. 

\---

_Twelve months ago almost on the dot…_

Apart from the one glaring detail, the table looks wonderful. Castiel got out the good china for the occasion, along with wine glasses for the Pinot Noir Michael said he’s bringing - bell-shaped glasses, Michael was very insistent on that, having informed Castiel that the ‘exquisite’ wine was very expensive and had to ‘breathe’. Little flecks of fresh burrata highlight the lasagna’s golden parmesan topping, the green salad is lavish with white radish and pomegranate seeds, the crimson napkins are folded beautifully on the plates on either side of the candelabra. 

Yes, it’s a very nice table, you could even say romantic, if it weren’t for the way Castiel is standing on it with a broom in his hand.

He’s trying very hard not to step in the lasagna, he really is. He’s been working on it all afternoon. No, actually he started yesterday, Friday, when he got home from Sandover at seven pm, but his first attempt at a vegetarian gluten-free lasagna was- well, best not go into that. It’s buried at the bottom of the bin outside. The second try is palatable, and he’s sure it scores points on presentation as long as he doesn’t leave a footprint in it. 

Because at this point a small part of him still thinks he can salvage this dinner, even though the rest of the open-plan kitchen and dining room looks like a small tornado invited itself over for appetizers and drinks.

Maneuvering his broom to his other hand, Castiel dials the next number from the hastily searched Yelp page.

Answer answer answer answer-

Click.

“Hi, you’ve reached Winches-”

“Can you come now?” Castiel blurts out.

There’s a small silence on the other end of a man thrown off his business introduction. “Uh, I’m free, yeah, what-”

“Can you be in Riverview in the next ten minutes?”

“I… yeah, I’m in the neighborhood.”

“Please.” Castiel leans against the broom which is lodged between the fancy wooden bread basket (full of what the specialty baker assures him is edible gluten free bread) and the flower vase. “Please come. It’s something of an emergency.”

“I gathered as much. I’m in my van right now, I can be there in a few minutes with all my equipment.” The voice on the other end sounds kindly, calm and _competent_ , and Castiel feels almost weak at the knees with relief. “What’s the address?”

Castiel trots it off, along with his name.

“No problem, mister Novak, I’m close by. Give me five minutes. I’m hanging up now. I’m in traffic, I don’t want to talk and drive.”

“Good, that’s wise, very good.” Castiel’s mouth pours out words without much conscious input from his brain. 

“Hang in there, I’ll be there soon.”

“I understand, thank you.” 

The line goes dead. Castiel’s hypothetical savior must not have a bluetooth connection. 

Thinking of bluetooth makes Castiel think of Michael, cruising along in his Maserati with the little bluetooth hookup in his ear, talking confidently as he drives… Everything Michael does, he does with a confidence and style that Castiel admires and envies in equal measure. Maybe it comes from being the rising star of Sandover Sales… Should Castiel call him? Michael isn’t due for another forty five minutes. 

He’s still chewing over the thought two minutes later when, through the large bay window, he sees a black van pull up to the curb. A winchester rifle painted on the side points a bullseye at a cartoon rat above the zooming words “Winchester Bro Pest Control - You got it, we hunt it!”

Castiel frowns.

A man gets out, bowlegged in jeans and a flannel shirt with a hint of confident swagger to match. Castiel almost expects a cowboy hat. The man glances at the address… and becomes fascinated by the sight of Castiel, nice and tidy in his Hugo Boss three piece and tie, framed by the bay window and standing on his table, broom in hand. 

Castiel thumbs Redial.

The man stares for another few seconds before reaching into his back pocket for his ringing phone without losing sight of the bay window.

“I take it that’s you, standing on the table?” the man asks with a grin in his voice. 

Castiel, for his part, is not amused. “I thought your advertisement said you were a no-kill service.”

The man half looks over his shoulder. “Oh, that, no, don’t worry. This kid- Jack, this kid I know, my brother and I are in the Big Brothers program, see, we sorta foster him, and he’s a wiz with an airbrush. He went a bit overboard with the deco without running the design by me first, and I don’t have the heart to get him to change it. But don’t worry, we specialize in discouraging and removing and all that, we’re not exterminators.”

“Good.” There were only so many humane pest control services in the immediate area, and the first two Castiel called couldn’t make it until tomorrow. “Come in, the door’s open.”

The man’s eyes leap to the door, and even over the distance of the tidy front yard and picket fence, Castiel can see the eyebrows go up. “Wide open. Did something bust in?”

“No, I was hoping something could be persuaded to move out.”

The grin is back, Castiel can see it even at this distance. “I’m gonna take a wild guess here. Racoon?”

Castiel looks around the kitchen. Flour, knocked over and blanketing the floor, hosts a multitude of pawprints. The spills of organic gluten-free tomato juice add an exciting counterpoint to the white canvas, so do the calabrese olives dotting the tableaux. If Gabriel were here, he’d be chiselling up Castiel’s kitchen linoleum for an exhibit in his gallery. The olives’ dish is in shards, a danger to foot and paw, the oven is still open and pumping hot air into the warmth of the kitchen, the oven mitts, used as missiles in the first attack, are on the couch and in the water jug on the sideboard respectively, the flourless cake Castiel baked is upside down on the floor like an upturned UFO, and the garbage can is knocked over, its contents strewn across the kitchen. 

The racoon is half hidden behind the toppled bin. It’s been staring at him all this time. Its lips lift over its teeth as it catches his eyes. Whenever he moves to get off the table, it darts forward with jerky movements, back arched, almost on its toes, making the most alarming growling sounds. Once he gets back on the table, it darts to the side door - not the open front door, no, the closed _side door_ that only leads to the basement, the stubborn beast. It sniffs it, then hides behind the nearby garbage and subsides again. 

“Racoon,” Castiel confirms heavily.

When he looks out the window, his putative rescuer has opened the back of the van and has extracted a six foot leash pole, a large mesh cage, and is pulling on some heavy duty gloves that go up past the elbow.

“Is it still in your kitchen?” he asks prosaically.

"Yes, it’s looking right at me." Castiel is no coward, he’d chivvied the raccoon around with the broom earlier, trying to get it out the door himself, but, well, there’s just something about the way that critter’s staring at him as if wondering what his guts taste like… he’ll let the professional handle it.

"Good, I’ll handle it,” says Dean as if he’s a mind-reader in denim, “you just stay where you are for now.” 

It’s said without the slightest whiff of condescension or mockery, it’s just straightforward, the working man accepting to step up and do his job. Castiel, who took a lot of mockery for his sexuality in his youth, feels faintly grateful that this man doesn’t think lightly of him for standing on a table because of an animal a tenth his size. 

“Oh yeah, there you are,” says the man as he enters the room, moves past the table and steps into the kitchen area. The raccoon scurries out from behind the garbage towards the side door, hits the brakes and runs back to cover again. Dean follows the trail of strewn garbage, then takes in the rest of the raccoon's effort at postmodernism (‘Kitchen, Deconstructed’.) “Wow, mama, you sure made a mess. You're a big one, aren’t you… Where did she come from?”

“Come from?”

“Yeah, did she suddenly appear in your kitchen? Open the oven and there she was? Or did you see where she snuck in from.”

“...I have no idea. I’d just put the lasagna down on the table, I turned and it was in the middle of the kitchen.”

“Homemade lasagna? Looks nice.” He sounds like he means it, though Castiel hasn’t seen him look away from the racoon as he slowly circles the kitchen, reinforced work books crunching in the debris. He has green eyes as keen as any hunter’s, Castiel finds himself believing in this man’s raccoon-wrangling abilities with no effort whatsoever. 

“Thanks, I did my best,” says Castiel with an exhausted gesture towards the dish at his feet “I managed to save it from the chaos at least.” 

“Smells good,” the man adds, but his eyes have drifted back to the dish on the table and now he doesn’t sound quite so honest. “Er, what cut of beef did you use? Or some kind of sausage meat?”

“Oh, it’s vegetarian gluten free.”

“It’s what now?”

“It’s- never mind.” It does smell like cheese-covered cardboard baked with eggplant, but he can only hope it’s edible. Hopefully Michael will appreciate it, as long as there’s not a racoon gnawing on his ankle while he does so. 

“Oh, careful, mister, er, mister Winchester?”

“Dean, call me Dean.”

“Please be careful. It attacked me. I’m worried it might be rabid.”

“Attacked? What do you mean exactly?” Once more no hint of disbelief or contempt, it’s the honest question of a professional man who wants all the facts.

“Yes, it’s so strange, I thought they were shy creatures. But it’s been snarling at me. I opened the front door and stood back, and it ran right at me instead of going out.”

“Yeah, I got a pretty good idea why.”

“You do?” Castiel stares at the racoon-whisperer before him like this Dean is a prophet of all things fuzzy with teeth. 

“Same reason I know she’s a female and I've been calling her mama. Saw her belly when she darted behind the garbage there. She’s lactating.”

“She’s got babies?” Castiel gives the raccoon an apologetic glance for trying to hound her out with a broom. The raccoon thanks him with a sonorous snarl, a noise halfway between a cat’s hiss and a dog’s growl. 

“Whoa, mama. I know, I know, you’re upset. So, you put the lasagna on the table and then what did you do exactly?”

“Uh…” Castiel searches his memory. He’d been thinking about Michael and the back and forth the two of them have had for months now. Their personalities are rather different, but, well, opposites attract, right? They’re both well placed in their respective departments. Two good looking openly gay men in the same company… Castiel wanted to be friends at least, and maybe try dating as a bonus. Michael has very high standards, it's well known; they went out for drinks a few times but nothing more, like he was sounding Castiel out. Castiel felt the need to prove himself, and worked overtime for a couple of months until he managed that neat coup with the Dick Roman merger, which propelled him into the spotlight of the Corporate Accounts management, at which point the drinks got considerably more cordial. This week Michael finally accepted an official first date, this intimate dinner at Castiel’s home. Castiel respects Michael’s fastidiousness, he himself doesn’t throw himself into new relationships very easily, and yes, Michael is certainly going places in this world and wants someone who can keep up with him. He hangs out with members of the board, plays squash with its youngest exec, he’s at the top of his game. He’s also a vegetarian, works on the Sandover ethics committee, goes to rallies and pride parades, he’s a brilliant man. Castiel knew he was going to have to pull out the stops to impress his date, he’d been concentrating on the details. The raccoon wasn’t part of the plan, though it now features in it largely. 

“Nice dishes,” says Dean unexpectedly.

“Thanks. They’re heirloom.”

“This where you normally keep ‘em? In the kitchen? Or did you get ‘em from the attic?”

“Oh, no, I have a basement, I keep my china there.” Castiel points carefully in that direction, carefully because the racoon has once again edged its way out from behind the knocked over garbage can and is prowling towards that very same basement door. “I did get the tablecloth from the attic, though.” It’s a good weave, hopefully it’ll wash...

“Ah. Lemme guess. You got stuff outta the basement earlier, maybe left the door open while you headed to the attic… by any chance, did you go and close the door just before you put the lasagna on the table?”

Castiel’s gaze flees from the snarling racoon to the closed door. “Oh no, don’t tell me...”

“Bet you got a bouncing bunch of brand new baby racoons down there, desperate for mama.” Dean’s smile is unexpectedly soft. “That's why she’s being so aggressive. She slipped up here when the door was open and you were out of the room, looking to score an easy meal, but then you came back, she hid, you closed the door, and now she don’t know how to get back down from here. That’s why she’s not leaving, and she’s getting shirty when anyone heads in that direction. Don’t worry. I’ll sort this out for you before your girl arrives.”

“My what?”

“I’m gonna assume that’s why you got out the fancy dishes in the first place.” Dean nods towards the elegant table and winks. His eyes really are very green.

“Um. My date is going to arrive at six thirty, yes.”

“I should be done by then, or if not, well, let’s hope she likes animals.”

“He’s with PETA,” Castiel answers without thinking. 

...Shit… Sure, this is California in a suburb of LA, but the average man in the street sometimes still has _views_ about men dating...

Dean looks up. Castiel looks down, hands tightening nervously on the broom, waiting for the words he’s heard most of his life, whispered at school, shouted in the street, shot at him over the internet...

“Dude, I date gals and guys alike, relax,” says Dean with an easy smile. “Now let me get this racoon out of your hair before she blows your big date.” 

“Thank you,” says Castiel on the waves of multifold relief.

“Maybe even let you get down from that table.”

“Oh ha-ha-ha," Castiel deadpans without thinking. This Dean Winchester is easy to talk to.

Dean’s been maneuvering slowly towards the raccoon, the leash extending on its pole. Slowly, slowly-

The raccoon explodes into motion, dashes away from the shelter of the garbage, skids in flour, pulls a crude donut on the kitchen floor and shoots off at an unexpected angle.

Dean’s jab forward with the leash misses her by a good foot. The end of the pole swings around and knocks a faux-greek vase off a shelf that adds to the mess of debris on the floor.

“Shit! Sorry, mister Novak!”

“Call me Castiel, and don’t worry, it was from my aunt Naomi.”

“Didn’t like the vase much?”

“Not that fond of the aunt either,” says Castiel, the adrenaline and Dean’s easy manners loosening his tongue a lot more than he’s used to.

Dean laughs - cuts it short with a gasp as the raccoon, which was hiding behind the kitchen’s center island, takes off again at a dead run, having spotted what she thinks is shelter.

“Oh no you don’t!”

Oh yes I am, seems to say the raccoon, which bounces up on a stool, then onto the counter, then leaps and scrambles up the large fridge towards the space between its top and the highest cabinet. Castiel suddenly has a nightmare vision of the animal getting stuck behind the heavy fridge or the cabinetry, unable to get out-

The leash whips forward with wonderful dexterity - but that raccoon isn’t half bad either, and manages to dodge it. She’s left scrambling at the very top of the fridge. Her back paws dig powerfully into the gap between fridge and door, find the rubber of the seal- the door flies open! Half a dozen eggs topple out of their holder onto the floor with a heart-breaking crush-crush-smush, a bottle of beer rolls after them in a lemming-like maneuver and explodes against the linoleum with a loud report. The sudden loss of her support sends the raccoon tumbling down through the fridge in a mad scrabble of foodstuff getting trashed. Dean leaps forward, reaching for the door- too late! The animal shoots out, using the meat drawer as a starting block for an olympics-qualifying dive across the floor. 

“Son of a bitch!” Dean twirls around and nearly gets his pole caught in the overhead lighting.

The raccoon is behind the garbage again, making terrible growly sounds. 

“Should we open the basement door?” Castiel suggests, because the animal’s maternal panic is breaking his heart, and he wouldn’t mind sparing his kitchen further damage either.

“Is your basement big? Is it full of stuff?”

“Yes to both questions I’m afraid.” Castiel looks around as if apologizing to the walls for what he’s about to say. “This is my childhood home, my parents have passed. It’s really too big and empty for me, full of old furniture and knick knacks - the commute is atrocious, too, but…” 

“But you grew up here.” Dean’s eyes linger on the lintel full of family pictures. “Of course you don’t want to just bung it on the market and move out. And this neighborhood's great, I grew up not too far from here myself."

“Right.” Neither Anna nor Gabriel have shown this kind of understanding for Castiel’s decision to rattle around in ‘the burbs’ and this large old house. 

“If I lose sight of her down in the basement, we’ll never find her again, and you’ll be hosting a family of racoons from now until the apocalypse.” 

“Um…” That doesn't sound ideal, true, but at this point maybe it’s a viable option while some of Castiel’s kitchen is still standing?

“They can have up to five kits, you know,” Dean informs him archly. “And there’s often more than one racoon around too. They never stay alone for long, at any rate. I once pulled fifteen of ‘em out of a house smaller than this one.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll have to come back tomorrow with Sam, my brother. We’ll evict any other squatters you have and racoon-proof your baseboards and basement, but for now lemme get mama out of here. Then we’ll find the kits by sound.” 

“You sure we will?” Castiel asks worriedly. “There’s really a lot of things in the basement, they could be anywhere, in a drawer, a box, anywhere.” Surely the babies will quickly perish without their mother. Castiel thinks of himself as a hard-headed accountant, he can gouge an account until it cries and bleeds money, but that’s just business. Outside Sandover, he’s just like his own mom, who’d leave the window open and spend ten minutes trying to chase out a fly rather than squish it. 

“Pretty sure I’ll find them. If not, I’ll loose her back in the basement and see if she leads me to- “

Apparently the raccoon is both very smart and proficient in English, and her disapproval of the plan is plain in the way she darts out of shelter again and right at Dean.

“Oh! Careful!”

Dean swiftly brings down the leash, but the top of the pole bonks against a cabinet - fortunately one with the door closed so nothing else breaks, but there’s little room to maneuver in the actual kitchen. The leash does no more than brush a striped tail in passing.

With a good grasp of strategy that separates the experienced raccoon hunter from the amateur, Dean changes tactics, heads away from the basement he’s been creeping towards in an effort to provoke his quarry. He circles, quickly sweeps the garbage back against the wall with his foot to close off one hiding spot - an overripe avocado leaves a green smear on the floor to further excite Gabriel’s artistic verve - and then by dent of moving this way and that, gets the raccoon to run around the larger dining room area.

“Stay on the table, but get ready to duck,” Dean tells Castiel tersely and runs after the animal. 

The leash leaps out - almost! The raccoon swerves, bounces off the arm of the couch, skitters on the hardwood.

Castiel quickly goes down on one knee on the table, dropping the broom so he’s ready to duck the pole.

The raccoon zigs and zags. Dean is trying to corner her between the bookshelf and the large granite chimney piece. Almost-

But that raccoon’s an escape artist, a champion in her class. Just as Dean slowly gets near, she leaps to scramble up the side of the bookcase like it's a ladder.

“How the hell - that’s smooth!” Castiel gasps.

“Oh, they can get anywhere, they’re awesome climbers - but once up there, she’ll be stuck.” There’s boxes at the other end of the bookshelf all the way up to the ceiling, blocking the climber's path, and now the leash sweeps the top of the furniture, aiming right at her.

The raccoon waits until she sees the white of Dean’s eye, and then she acts! Divebombs right off that seven foot high bookshelf! Castiel shouts in horror - then realizes she’s skimming down using the books and the shelves for support. Dean can’t move the leash down fast enough. Seemingly weightless, the raccoon leaps to the ground, bounds once, twice - 

And she’s up on the far end of the long table heading straight towards Castiel!

“Shit! Cas! Don’t-”

Castiel, with reflexes he didn't know he had, grabs a shield and puts it between himself and the advancing beast just as the raccoon leaps at him.

“-get bit-”

There’s a squelshy kind of thud. 

Castiel gasps and lowers the lasagna dish in horror. A small amount of the splattered food tips out onto his suit, but he’s more worried about the raccoon. “Quick! Grab her so we can hose her down! She’ll burn herself! Ow.”

“Worry about yourself, Cas!” barks Dean, rushing towards him. “Quick, get those off and get in a shower!”

“It’s okay - it’s okay, they’re thick -” Castiel quickly wipes away the lasagna from his pants with the salad tongs. His thighs are getting a bit hot, but he’ll live. The raccoon, though…

“Don’t worry about the varmint, she’s fine,” says Dean, his kindly air slipping a bit as he glares at the raccoon who’s back in the kitchen, hiding behind the island. “She hit the cheese crust, she didn’t go through it. There’s not a spot of tomato sauce on her, and she’s still not slowing down. This is one for the books. Shoulda called Sammy, but didn’t think it was a two man job. You sure you’re okay?”

Castiel, prosaic, hops off the table, goes to the sideboard and pours the carafe of chilled water over his pants after removing the soggy oven mitt. “I'm fine. Here, I’ll help you corner her.”

“Right.”

But Dean doesn't leap forward for further attempts at a raccoon round-up, he’s side eyeing Castiel in a strange way and his face is doing something odd. 

Castiel looks down at himself. He’s dripping water, lasagna, he also knocked over the salad bowl so there’s a radish slice stuck to his vest like an oversized clown button among the prim black ones. Dinner’s a total loss, the bread’s on the floor and his dignity left the building hours ago, and Castiel can only conclude, “Ah, I see I’m a bit of a mess.”

A thunderous silence greets that understatement, punctuated by the soft growls of the raccoon in the background. 

Dean tries valiantly to hold it in, that much is obvious, but the laugh bursts out of him anyway, and Castiel breaks down in turn, chortling hard enough to make his ribs ache as he gestures weakly at himself, at the kitchen, at the raccoon… Dean has to lean against the pole he’s laughing so hard, and claps Castiel on the shoulder.

“We all been there, Cas,” he wheezes.

“Really? When was the last time you were lasagnaed by a raccoon?” Castiel gasps out between snorts, and Dean almost folds over he’s laughing so hard.

“What on earth?!”

Dean and Castiel splutter to a halt and turn. 

Michael is standing in the doorway with a bottle of wine in hand and his jaw around his breastbone.

“M-Michael? You’re, um, early.”

This suddenly isn’t so funny anymore… except it is, since at this point the calamities keep piling up with almost comedic timing, and Castiel has to put a hand over his mouth to hold in the hysterical snicker, and hopes real hard he’s not about to give himself the hiccups for his efforts. Finally he clears his throat. 

“Michael, I’m so sorry, um, I have an issue-...um...”

“I can see that.” Michael is looking around the house, very unimpressed with the carnage of the kitchen, and only slightly less unimpressed with the decor Castiel’s parents had been so proud of, and which, granted, is nowhere near as neat and trendy as Michael’s apartment (it was featured in a fashion article once, he keeps the magazine on his desk.)

There’s still a raccoon in the kitchen, though the appearance of a third human, or the distraction of the two hunters, has put a stop to the growling. “I… I’m not sure how long this is going to take. Maybe, er… rain check?”

“I live an hour away,” Michael says tartly, “I wish you’d given me a heads up.”

“He was kinda busy,” says Dean like it slipped out before he could rein it in.

This gets Michael’s attention on him. “Who are you?”

“Dean Winchester. Pest control.”

“Do your job then.” Castiel remembers that tone from when Michael addresses Sandover Security or a parking valet. It struck him as a little high handed in those circumstances, but he never fully grasped how unpleasant it sounds until now.

“I’m working on it,” says Dean composedly. Not cowed in the least by that tone, it’s to be noted; more in the way of one who’s used to dealing with pests… “Now, come here, mama.”

It’s quickly apparent that the kitchen still doesn’t offer a very good location for catching a racoon. The pole clatters against the cabinets, and the raccoon is free to run around the island to escape in an impromptu Stooges-like routine. Dean calmly tells Castiel to stay back when the latter offers to help. “She’s kinda wild, you’ll get bit.”

"Maybe I can use my oven mitts?"

"No, just stay there. Damn, I normally have a telescoping pole for this kind of situation, but my brother took it with him today, the big moose…"

“Oh, for - do you even know how to do your job?” Michael asks sourly after only a minute. “Don’t you have something else, like an electric prod or a trap?”

“She’s too excited to get lured into a bait cage.”

“Something that will clamp shut when it steps on it.”

Dean looks back with a rather unpleasant expression, though he keeps his tone even. “Those can break an animal’s leg.”

“Oh, for pete’s sake-” Michael puts down the wine on the sideboard. “Give me that leash,” he snaps with the authority of the young exec going places that he is.

\---

The racoon does not like the cage. This cage is going to die, and Dean better not be making any long term plans either. But when Dean carefully slips her two kits in with her, she calms down and nestles with them deep in the loose ripped up clothes that blanket the bottom.

“They’re adorable.” Castiel keeps his voice to a whisper to avoid upsetting her all over again. 

“Yeah, absolutely precious, and I’m glad I got these on,” says Dean drolly, holding up the heavy duty chainmail-reinforced gloves. “You should have seen how they went for my thumb. They’re fighters like their mama.”

“Yes.”

“Any news from that guy yet?” Dean asks idly, removing one of the gloves. “He should be at the hospital by now, the nearest is only ten minutes away.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” says Castiel frostily.

… Michael had tried to catch the racoon.

The racoon had taken exception to this.

The leash had missed the animal who’d jumped in his direction, heading, in a panic now, towards the open door. Three humans were too much for her, or maybe she felt a killing intent that’d been missing before. 

MIchael, who hadn’t caught on that he was standing between her and the exit, leapt back with a startled shout as if she was attacking him. 

Since they both dodged in the same direction and at the same time, this put his legs on an intercept course with the racoon.

Neither of them were happy with this result. 

Michael had jabbed down hard with the pole like he was trying to bash the racoon’s head in. Castiel’s phone in his pocket is on mute, and whenever the thought of checking his texts comes to mind, he remembers the look on the face of mister ‘I belong to PETA with all my celebrity friends I always talk about’ as he tried to brain a panicked animal who was at this point only trying to escape.

The raccoon avoided the pole and bit Michael on the calf. 

MIchael had dropped the leash and leaped around a lot- things went downhill, in a word, until Dean picked up his equipment, neatly collared the animal and detached her from her prey. Michael left shortly thereafter with a thunderous look, a lot of insults at Dean for doing a bad job (what the hell), at Castiel for having vermin in his crumbling old house (what the _hell_ ), and saying he’d present the doctor’s bill to the two of them. Castiel won’t let Dean even see that invoice, he’ll settle it himself, hoping that every shot it covers hurt like hell, and then he’ll never have anything to do with the vain prat it belongs to again.

After all this drama, Dean handily caged the racoon, found the kits, and has them now in the back of his van.

“What will you do with them?”

Dean rubs his nose contemplatively. He’s got freckles, Castiel notices, visible in the late afternoon sunshine. “I gotta few spots for this sort of thing. Thirty minutes away from here, in the woods. I’ll release her there.”

“That sounds ideal.” Castiel looks at the large fur bump with the two little fur bumps nearby. “Yes, it’ll be fine.” But he thinks of the animal that’s been peacefully living in his basement and probably living off his garbage, taken away from her familiar den and suddenly abandoned miles from town with babies… “Maybe I can give them some food…? The bread is already on the floor, or maybe some-”

“Human food’s not all that good for them, there’s a lot of salt.”

“Oh. How about fruit? I have some organic apples.”

Nodding, Dean closes the van door as quietly as he can. “Yeah, that works. I can leave it nearby when I open the cage.” 

“Good.” Castiel looks back at the house, feeling wrung out. “Good.”

There’s a moment of silence while Dean waits for him to get the fruit, and Castiel just looks at the big empty house turned upside down.

“Uh, could I… could I perhaps come with you?”

“Uh?”

“I’d like to make sure they’re okay. And, well, it’s either this or I go back in and clean up _that.”_ Castiel gestures in the direction of the kitchen.

They both look at the house contemplatively, they look at each other, then Dean crooks a smile. “Hey, I’d love the company, and you’ll see, the place I have in mind is real sweet. There’s a brook, and lotsa trees. It’s on private grounds, a free range orchard and dairy farm that belongs to a friend of mine. He’s gaga over all the critters so she’ll never get trapped.”

“Thanks.”

\---

It only takes five minutes for Castiel to grab the apples and a change of clothes, and now he’s riding in the van’s passenger seat as Dean leaves Riverview and puts his blinker on to indicate a left turn. 

“You look different in jeans and stuff,” Dean says out of the blue, as if the incoming traffic had distracted him enough for that unattended comment to slip out. "Not that you didn't look very good in the suit- very- I mean- right."

“I feel more comfortable, let me tell you. I normally don’t wear that outside of work, I tend to relax at home in the evenings in outfits like this, but I…” The Castiel who thought he had to get dressed up to impress Michael seems like another person entirely now, one he hasn’t seen in years, a distant cousin perhaps, probably on his aunt Naomi’s side… 

“Hm. Sorry your evening went south.”

Castiel’s lips pinch. “I don’t think I’m missing out on much.”

“Hah. Yeah, you’re way too nice- I mean, uh, yeah, he seems a bit, yanno, has a temper.” Dean must be a very careful driver, he’s concentrating real hard on that traffic.

There’s a moment of silence that’s odd. Not awkward, but odd.

“Too bad about the lasagna,” Dean says to tackle it. 

“It was not very good.”

“Aw, I’m sure it was great, looked delicious.”

“No, no,” Castiel says composedly as he watches the streets pass by the window, “that lasagna had to die.”

“Hah. But at least it was something to eat. Now you got nothin’.”

Castiel whips his head around and blinks in dismay at the van’s radio clock. “Oh, I’m sorry! You came- it’s so late, you probably wanted to go home for your own dinner soon!”

“It’s okay, it was an emergency,” says Dean with an easy grin that is one of the most beautiful things Castiel has seen in awhile.

“Will the racoons be alright if we stop and get some takeaway?”

Dean gives him a quick inscrutable look. “They should be okay if we’re fast, but I don’t know any vegan-to-go joints on this side of town.”

“Oh, Michael’s the vegetarian who can’t eat gluten. Or whatever.” Now that he’s thinking about it, the squash-playing exec is coeliac and thus has a very good reason to avoid gluten; Michael, for his part, does not, though maybe the fact that he eats frequently with the exec after their matches explains his well-proclaimed dietary specificity. “Personally, I could murder a burger right now.”

“Oh hell yeah, now you’re talking my language. I know this diner off Highway 16, doesn't look like much but the food is worth killing over.”

\---

“So my fancy romantic dinner ended up as an impromptu picnic of burgers by a brook while watching a racoon get out of a box and eat my apples,” says Castiel dreamily, looking across the table at his boyfriend (the waitress eclipsed herself ages ago.)

“Hey, the wine was fancy. The one Michael left behind.”

“Yes, I’m glad you accepted to come back in and help me drink it after dropping me off.”

“Winchester Brothers are always reliable in a pinch,” says Dean, lifting his beer in a salute. “You got it, we hunt it. And finish the bottle.”

“You even helped me clean up my kitchen a bit.”

“You think I was about to leave a classy guy like you in the middle of all that garbage and surrounded by wild racoons bursting out of the basement? You weren’t gonna get rid of me that easily. I know a good thing when I see it.”

“So do I.” Castiel had always thought himself slow and cautious in the matter of entering new relationships, but it turns out he was just waiting for the right pest control expert to come through that door and help him with a raccoon problem. 

“Though you know,” Castiel adds with the reflex for exactitude of keen accountants everywhere, “we’re jumping the gun with this anniversary. Officially we only got together a couple of weeks afterwards, when I invited you over for a barbecue.” And Dean had stayed the night. And the next night. And most of the nights after that until he just moved in. His brother Sam, his girlfriend Eileen, their mom and dad and Jack and all their friends and spouses and kids, they’ve all come over to dine at some point this past year (raccoons not included.) Castiel’s too-large house has felt so much fuller and brighter ever since, and now has the best pest-proofing in the county as a bonus.

“Nah, it was one week before that, when I invited you to that motorcycle derby we both wanted to see.”

“Was that an official date already?”

“How do you label a date as official?” Dean quizzes. 

Castiel leans his chin in his hand, looking deep into Dean’s eyes. “Wanting to spend time with a person because you think he’s interesting, warm, kind, funny, very easy to look at, and you’re into him romantically.”

Dean mirrors his pose. “Then me coming by the next day to board up your basement already counts as a date, Cas. That’s why I say our first year anniversary is the day we let mama out and watched her scamper off.”

Castiel lifts a glass. “To our raccoon, then.”

“To mama and her family, and to us.”

By the counter, the waitress glances at her watch and sighs. The way those two are making googly eyes at each other, they’ll be here awhile yet. So much for getting off early on her weekday shift. Anniversary, right. Who celebrates an anniversary over beers, dinner burgers and a discussion about raccoons…?

**Author's Note:**

> And there we go. Please note that this was written in a few hours purely for the fun of it. Pest control experts, please don’t tell me all the things I got wrong, I decided not to indulge in my usual pre-fic research, and my baseline knowledge in raccoonology is lacking. But 2020 being what it is, I decided to post my ficcy prozac alternative anyway, maybe it will boost someone else’s morale too.


End file.
